When Hearts Stop Beating
by BuyMeLiliesWhenImSad
Summary: We follow Arizona's thoughts from her excitement about going to Fiji with Callie to her sorrow of letting her go in the end. A one-shot set around Calzona's first breakup in 6x21.


**AN: Another request, another one-shot. Ta-daaa! I've come to like writing these kinds of fics. It would be more obvious to show this scene from Callie's point of view, so… that's not what I've chosen to do. I've played with Arizona's thoughts during their first breakup in 6x21, and I hope you'll like it. You can/should listen to "Make it without you" by Andrew Belle while reading to get in the real first-break-up-mood. **

**Disclaimer: All rights, lines and characters belong to Shonda Rhimes.**

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Right now I could actually kiss my cousin, that's how much excitement I hold. It'll be mine and Callie's first vacation as a couple and just the thought makes my mind crazy; Callie in a bikini, lots of delicious drinks and a sandy beach – away from the clinical world and buzzing pagers, out of reach from the real world and 911's. It'll just be me, my gorgeous girlfriend and the sunny Fiji. I can't wait to tell Callie, she'll be thrilled, I just know it. And we do need this, we need to be together and think about other things than our obvious disagreements about the future that has clouded our lives the past weeks. I need to love my girlfriend without feeling I'm a tightening noose around her dreams, I need to find the place where I don't feel like a mean, self-centered…cow…again and I think Fiji will help me do so. Being away with Callie, the woman I love, can cure anything; so I'm really looking forward to this opportunity. Pressing the send button, I email my cousin a thankful reply. All I need to do now is talk to Callie about when it'll be the best time to wrap up and get out of here. Hearing the telltale of Callie's keys in the lock I look up and find my girlfriend entering her apartment.

"Hey, we scored!" I exclaim excitedly as Callie quickly throws her keys on the table and shrugs out of her jacket. "My cousin said we can use their timeshare. So Fiji. We can either go at the end of this month or we could save up three weeks of time, rearrange our surgical schedules and go at the end of next month," I can't contain my excitement about us finally getting away and having the so called couple-time, but my excitement doesn't seem to rub off on Callie. She positions herself in front of me on the coffee table, holding her hand up. It's very clear to me what the scribbling on her perfect hand means, but not really knowing what I'm supposed to do with it or even why she's got a number written on her skin, I dumbly fumble my way into something I may not want to know. "What's that?"

Callie's eyes almost tell me the answer just there, begging for some sort of understanding yet forgiveness, and slowly I feel my excitement painfully trickle out of my veins. "This cute girl's number," Callie confirms and voices my thoughts, my eyes shifting from her face to her hand and her face again. She's got the look of a scared child and that scares me. "And I can't get it off. And I'm not gonna use it. I don't wanna use it," her words punches me in the face and right there all my previous excitement has gone. I feel my insides curling and my heart slowly dipping, even though Callie did tell me that she wasn't going to use the number. I know there's more; I know she wouldn't just let a stranger write their number on her hand if there wasn't more to it. She loves me, I never doubt that…but some way I know she can't entirely close her dreams, because…because she's a dreamer, one of her best qualities. It still hurts, though, and I know it's about to hurt a hell of a lot more. Looking at her hand, Callie voices the biggest dream of hers I know all too well. "But I can't stop wondering if maybe…she wants a baby…one day," the big pools of brown I used to see my future in carefully tries to lock on my blue ones, but I can't meet them. I just can't watch as my life slips through my fingers because of a dream I've never had.

How did it all get so messed up? When did we end in this never-ending circle? The pain keeps boiling inside of me; trying to somehow let it out I sigh and try to get a clearer view of the road we're crossing. "I love you. Everything about you," Callie tells me, her shaky voice telling me that she's on the very edge to cry. Finally meeting her eyes, I watch the pool with unshed tears which only makes the pain even worse. I see how this could turn out and I'm really not going to let that happen, I need her. I need everything she is and I'm not ready to let her go; I'm not finished loving her, I never will be. "But there's this one thing that I need. And I can't change it, I can't ask you to change, I don't want you to change..."

Callie's last words are laced with sorrow which makes my heart ache and my love for her increase to heights, I didn't thought possible. I know we see different on many things but that's what makes us good… isn't it? That's what makes us strong…because we know how to turn to each other when we need it, even though we don't always look at things the same way. That's what makes a good relationship work, isn't it? To find insight in your partner's point of views and to try and look through their eyes. It's just not always it's as easy as it sounds. And it still pains me that I'm the one making my girlfriend cry, that I'm the one making this strong, caring woman in front of me cry tears of sadness because she can't have her dream…because I can't make her dream come true. "I can't be the one that keeps you from having a baby," I tell her as my heart breaks into little pieces of love, both of us letting a sigh of confusion and stress escape our throats. "I love you, too," and there's nothing in this world that could change that. I love Callie more than I've ever loved another woman before and that's what scares me right now…that's what has always scared me. I love her so much that the thought of not being with her kills me. "And we can keep going…"

"But I don't know where we're going," Callie adds a little too quickly for my mind to catch up on. We were going to Fiji just 5 minutes ago and now I don't even know if we're leaving this room together. But somewhere deep inside I know it… I know that when I leave this apartment, I will be sad. I will be devastated and I will be heartbroken because the love of my life did in fact slip through my fingers just now.

"Come here," I close the laptop and put it aside, coaxing her to join me on the couch. And the minute she places herself next to me, I claim her lips. I show her how much love I hold for her. Cupping her cheek, I press my lips onto hers with a force of passion and want for her to know just how much I feel for her. Callie participates, cupping my cheek as well; it's like all worlds collide. It's like there's nothing left… it's just me and her. Callie and I. And it makes my stomach flinch because I know it'll be over way too soon, the feeling of her will wash off of me way too soon and I can't handle the thought of that happening. The kiss is a rough show of affection, a needy one that tries to mirror what we both are feeling right now; the feeling of never wanting to let each other go.

"God, what are we gonna do?" Callie asks when we part, our foreheads resting against the other's, and her crying voice sends vibrations through my entire body, making my soul cry along with my heart. I know I need to say it, I know it's the only thing to do in this situation, it's just so incredibly hard to let love go even though it's not because something bad happened. Maybe that's what makes it so much harder, letting love go because love wasn't enough…because love wasn't enough to find that well needed spot in between and meet halfway. Maybe that's why I feel like my heart is being ripped out and used as a bouncing ball, every pound causing my breath to clip and my eyes to squeeze shut?

"Well, I'm gonna get my stuff together," Callie lets out a strangled sigh as I try to hold in all the feelings that has crept themselves up in my throat. Needing the connection, I pull Callie into a tight hug and exhale. The feeling of Callie's hands stroking my back and her uncontrollable heartbeat against my chest is almost too much for me to feel, but I need to feel it. I need to feel her. I need to feel her for as long as I can, because very soon it'll be all over and I won't be able to feel her ever again.

_"_And what? We'll just..."

"We'll see each other at work," I reassure her, sensing the need for me to be the strong one. Callie needs me to be the strong one now and I will be whatever she needs me to be. Kissing her shoulder, I inhale the scent that is pure Callie; that is home to me whenever I'm lost. I take one last sniff of the woman I love and hug her tighter than I've ever done before.

"I'm so sorry. I love you," Callie cries pulling me in as close as we she can, and right there it's done. It's really done. I know it was unavoidable but the pain still overwhelms me, the pain still slaps me in the face as I try to wake up from this nightmare.

"Me too, me too," I tell her honestly, feeling her stroke my hair as the hug grows even more affectionate. I can't never let her go, I won't. I know that when I let the hug end, when we part…we'll part as in really part. We won't be together. I won't have a girlfriend…I won't be Callie's girlfriend. It's too surreal for me to think of, my mind can't go there right now. All I need to feel right now is this amazing woman loving me, loving me so much. And all I am able to give back to her is my never-ending love, showing her how much I truly love her. That the love is so immense and so profound that I can set it free, that I can set her free because it is that strong and intense. I will never recover from it, I will never feel my heart beat like it's done since meeting Callie, but the love I hold for her is bigger than me. It's bigger than whatever other feeling I might be feeling and experiencing. That kind of love is the strongest thing I've ever felt and if I need to live without a beating heart to feel it, then that's what I'm going to do.

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**AN: Thanks for reading, guys! I hope you found it interesting to be inside of Arizona's mind and that I someway did the scene justice.  
****Have a nice week!**


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